Migraine pain is not just a headache. It is intense pain that can last for hours or even days on end, varying in intensity and leaving the sufferer fatigued, feeling washed-out and often with a residual dull headache and even a depressed mood.
Health experts tell us that most migraine will last between 4 to 72 hours, meaning migraines having a huge impact on quality of life.
What does a migraine feel like?
Migraine pain is different for different people; not everyone experiences the same symptoms.
The most common type of migraine affects the forehead area, usually on one side of the head, but there are no rules with migraine pain!
It can shift to the other side, or pain can affect the entire forehead, or even the entire face including the nostrils, cheeks and jaw area. It may also be felt in back of the temples.
So what does migraine pain feel like? People describe the debilitating pain of migraine headache as throbbing, pulsing, pounding, perforating and pulsating.
Between 20 – 30% of people experience an aura with (or before) their migraine.
Auras are usually visual disturbances, such as flashes of shapes of light like bright zigzag lines, flashing lights, difficulty in focusing or blind spots. For some people, an aura may affect the ability to speak, or sensation or movement.
Regardless of whether a migraine includes an Aura, a migraine pain may not just be aggravated by light. Some migraine sufferers have:
- sensitivity to light (photophobia)
- sensitivity to noise (phonophobia)
- sensitivity to smell (osmophobia)
And for many, movement makes the pain of a migraine worse.
These are the other main distressing symptoms most migraine sufferers will experience:
- gut symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and/or diarrhoea
- loss or blurred vision may occur – some people see double or lose vision in one eye.
- feeling lightheaded or dizzy
- confusion and difficulty concentrating, speaking and/or finding the right words (dysphasia)
- difficulty with co-ordination and clumsiness
- muscle stiffness, especially in the neck and shoulders
- tingling, pins and needles or numbness
Treating complex migraine pain
Migraine sufferers can improve their quality of life and reduce the frequency and intensity of migraine headaches, plus reduce their dependence of medication with holistic physical therapies.
Experienced Musculoskeletal Therapist Gary Bates uses proven Myotherapy techniques to isolate and resolve the causes of migraine pain tension.
Assessing the source of your migraine pain, Gary can effectively treat the chronic pain caused by persistent and severe migraine using various ph:
- relieving pain using dry needling therapy and deep tissue massage on areas
- improvement flexibility and movement with Fascia massage using Myofascial Release to the head, neck and shoulders
- relieving jaw pain if jaw clenching or TMJ is a contributor to migraine symptoms with Myofascial Release
- considering and working with the client lifestyle or other medical factors that contribute to migraine pain. This might include poor posture, stressors or an inability to relax, sleep disturbances, muscle overuse
As well as treating the cause of a current migraine, Gary can assist you to work on improving your muscle function and long-term health to reduce the occurrence of migraine symptoms.
By focusing on pressure points that trigger migraine pain and using massage and joint mobilisation techniques, the source of your migraine can be isolated and resolved.
Talk to Gary at Mosaic Health and Fitness about relief from migraine pain.